VMware Updated HCX Enterprise Simplifies Application Migration and Mobility

VMware, Inc. announced the latest version of VMware HCX, its application mobility platform.

A key enabler of cloud migration strategies, VMware HCX accelerates large-scale live migrations of vSphere and non-vSphere workloads to help customers operationalize multi-cloud and hybrid cloud transformations.

As organizations adopt hybrid and multi-cloud architectures leveraging VMware infrastructure, they are standing up new environments locally and in the cloud with the goal of simplifying operations and increasing business agility. However, enterprises cannot realize the promise of a modern datacenter or hybrid cloud until they can freely move applications and workloads between environments. HCX enables data center and cloud transformations by simplifying the process of connecting, populating and continually optimizing application placement in cloud infrastructures.

With this release of VMware HCX, which is designed for simplifying workload migration, workload rebalancing and optimized DR across datacenters and clouds, the company has delivered three features designed for enterprise customers.

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Non-vSphere to vSphere migration
HCX Enterprise supports non-vSphere workload migration starting with KVM and Hyper-V, providing customers a simple path to re-platforming applications for complete control.

Large scale bulk migration
With this most recent release, the company is enhancing VMware HCX with vMotion, combining the scalability benefits of bulk migration (parallelism, scheduling, etc.) with the ability to migrate hundreds of live workloads at once with no downtime. With HCX vMotion, VMs can be replicated to the new target in bulk and the migration can be completed at a scheduled time, allowing customers to control application cutover to minimize business risk.

Advanced DR with Site Recovery Manager readiness
VMware HCX Enterprise works with the firm’s Site Recovery Manager (SRM) to combine DR capabilities with hybrid connectivity for secure, backup and recovery of critical workloads. With this joint solution, customers can leverage the HCX hybrid interconnect to optimize bandwidth and connectivity, secure VMs in transit and stretch networks to simplify IP address management for recovered VMs. HCX also accelerates replication processes by eliminating incompatibility issues across networks and storage.

According to 451 Research’s Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud, Hosting, Managed services, Workloads and Key Projects 2019 report, the percentage of workloads being executed primarily in public cloud environments is expected to double over the next 2 years.

As the company continues its leadership in hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure with offerings like VMware Cloud on AWS, Cloud Foundation and offerings through VMware Cloud Provider Partners, HCX is a platform that will enable customers to create a borderless SDDC.

“The addition of non-vSphere to vSphere migration is a game-changer for our business. As a VMware Enterprise Partner and a premier consultant on telco cloud and NFV strategies we’re designing large-scale OpenStack and VIO adoption strategies every day. The addition of KVM to vSphere migration gives us another way to accelerate time-to-value for our customers as well as building long term value by creating a hybrid interconnect across their IT, B2B and NFV cloud environments,” said John Antonio, chief strategy officer, IDX, IDX Labs.

“As one of the pioneers of Managed Private Cloud, CenturyLink has a range of customers at different stages of technology evolution across its VMware managed services portfolio. We use the VMware HCX platform to extend, migrate and integrate environments together when customers are implementing design updates, architecture changes, or logical migrations. Providing an automated tool for large-scale migration of workloads to our VMware Cloud-Verified environment enables our customers to have secure, seamless migration of mission-critical apps with no downtime,” said David Shacochis, VP, product management, IT solutions, CenturyLink, Inc.

“In its first two years of availability, VMware HCX has become an integral part of VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware NSX offerings for customers migrating VMware workloads,” said Allwyn Sequeira, SVP and GM, hybrid cloud services BU, VMware. “By building on that success and extending the VMware HCX platform to enable customers to fully operationalize hybrid and multi-clouds with faster migrations of VMware and non-VMware applications and enable airtight DR strategies, we’ve broadened both the use cases and the value of VMware HCX for new and existing customers.“

VMware HCX Enterprise is available.

Resources:
Blog: Hybrid Cloud Extension Archive
Blog: Introducing HCX Enterprise   
Blog: VMware HCX Enterprise: Non-vSphere to vSphere Workload Migration    
Blog: HCX Enterprise: Replication-assisted vMotion
VMworld Catalog